KSE-100 down by 238 points on fears of tax benefit withdrawals

KARACHI: The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) continued its declining trend on Wednesday after a day respite on reports of tax benefit withdrawal.

The index closed at 40,522 points as against 40,760 points showing a decline of 238 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said market opened on a positive note, however, concerns on reducing the PSDP, withdrawal of tax relaxation and introduction of belt tightening measures through Finance Bill gripped the stock market with fear.
After registering an increase of 65 points early in the day, ASTL’s result announcement came as a shock to investors, whereby apparent increase in EPS was attributed to one-off tax credit without which the company showed little to no growth in earnings.
The decline in gross profit margins also added to concerns. ASTL traded at lower circuit throughout the day, post result announcement.
Besides ASTL, rest of the steel sector also bore pressure and reflected negatively on Cement sector as well. Both DGKC and LUCK saw price declines of ~Rs. 5 and ~Rs. 25 respectively. E&P sector, on the contrary performed well, on the back of higher international crude oil prices. HBL, UBL, BOP, NBP and BAFL saw bulk of the trades, however, bearish pressure caused prices to slide.
Sectors contributing to this performance include Cement (-83 points), Banks (-59 points), Fertilizer (-50 points), O&GMCs (-34 points), Food (-26 points), and E&P (+51 points).
Volumes largely stayed the same at 136.9 million shares as against 139.5 million shares yesterday. Average traded value also declined by 7.7 to reach $ 42.8 million as against $46.4 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include UNITY, BOP, DOL, STCL and FFL reflecting 34 percent of total volumes.

Follow us

PKRevenue.com is an independent portal of multiple source for economic and financial updates across Pakistan as well as the globe. The website focuses on micro- and macro-economic issues. The primary topics discussed here included: finance, taxes, money and banking, commerce, money market and equity market etc.